People on Hive have been conditioned to pretty much ignore NEGATIVE reputation post as they are accounts that have been shunned or are accounts that are believed to be spam, or plagiarism account. I do not use the Hive.Blog front end I use the PeakD front end. When an account is negative reputation while it may not be technically invisible, it is none the less comes with a warning This post preview is currently hidden due to the author's low reputation or low rating. Pretty much states the post or the comment is HIDDEN, on Faccebook and on Youtube people would say it was Shadowed Banned.

So you visit the persons page to see what they had to say, you have to click the comment they left to see it? but wait guess what? you need to click again and see the comment in the post where they left it. With another click to open the comment.

Downvoting is a redistribution of rewards away from one post to other posts.

When it is done with that intent and when it is justified. Unfortunately the down vote has become a punishment tool for trying to control and direct the narrative in many cases. Don't like Flat Eathers down vote them. Think Anti-vaxxers are the bane of the Earth - Down Vote them. Hard core Democrat down vote the republican post.

And don't like eggs - well lets just instantly down vote the account at 100% power into oblivion, I mean we can not have a post with one vote and maybe 3 cents worth of votes collecting, I know, I'll down vote it and claim it was for reward disagreement

It is the same with Negative Reputation when it comes to post:

Downvoting doesn't prevent someone from participating in the Hive social side. Assuming by that you mean communication. And you can tell from his subsequent comments that the OP knows this.

Yes I am sure they, (the OP not familiar with what OP means) knows it. The down voter I am sure is fully aware of what a 100% down vote at 400,000 HP is going to do to a less than 20 HP account, only 18 days old. In that time they have earned less than 10 HP and are now in a full power down. Do you think they are going to have nice things to say about Hive Block Chain?